Building decolonial climate justice movements: Four tensions

Abstract

Prevailing approaches to resolving the climate crisis further entrench and extend the same institutions of racial capitalism and colonial domination which have precipitated this crisis. The need to build transformative movements to fight for climate justice is dire. Yet, transformative movements are inevitably structured by many of the same dynamics they oppose. This presents a risk that such movements may reproduce colonial or otherwise unjust relations in the worlds they seek to bring about. We point to four areas of tension where we see this dilemma playing out within efforts to build decolonial climate justice movements, and briefly discuss some questions that arise for scholars committed to this work.